Weekly Photo Challenge Future

When Carl Benz invented the first petrol driven car, a thing called “Patent Motorwagen” in 1886, nobody knew how much and in which ways it would change the future. The early days of the Automobile were fascinating. Mutual interests made friends and mutual interests separated them again. Gottlieb Daimler, who had first been Wilhelm Maybach’s promoter and later on business parter, became Carl Benz’ associate in 1926, when they founded Daimler-Benz AG.

In 1998 the former CEOs of Germany based Daimler-Benz AG and USA based Chrysler Corporation apparently suffered from megalomania and merged into DaimlerChrysler. They also bought huge shares in Mitsubishi and Hyundai and referred to the merger as to a “Marriage made in heaven”. It was a crazy time, where subordinates in Germany had to fly to meetings with their supervisors based in the United States and vice versa. DaimlerChrysler had its own in house travel agency in those days to make the most of travel plans and meetings. Despite the money that was poured into this project, things didn’t work out as planned and the Chrysler part of the company was sold in 2007.

What used to be Benz & Cie -> Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft -> Daimler-BenzAG -> DaimlerChryslerAG is now Daimler AG. I still find it sad, that the name of the man who created this extraordinary future 130 years ago, was eliminated in 1998 from the name of the company he originally founded.

🙂 Well, the patent-motorwagen didn’t drive very fast, dear Janet.
There was no traffic in comparison to what we have on the streets today.
However, Bertha Benz (wife of Carl) took her sons on a roughly 106 kilometer ride from Mannheim to Pforzheim in 1888 – a legendary ride. It was a 3 day tour and they filled up their “car” at the pharmacies. She tried to promote her husband’s vehicle and was very successful in doing so.
Have a very good weekend. The weather is gray and rainy and I will take the time to take pictures for some blog posts 😉